Murder She Wrote Amanda's Wedding
by susan cousineau
Summary: This is the story of Jessica and her investigation into the murder of a friend at her niece's wedding.


It had been a long cold winter and Jessica Fletcher had decided to take a break and go to her neices house in Montague Ma. to attend her wedding. It was a quaint town just outside of Amherst and her neice's home was located on a nice tree lined street.  
Her niece Amanda had gone to UMASS Amherst to become a teacher at a local school. She was soon to be married to a local man who worked at the local grocery store as an assistant manager.  
As Jessica drove towards the home of her niece , she reflected on her red haired freckled faced niece and the memories of her growing up. She had been to her home many times, and had remained close to her sister and brother in law Mark and Joanne even after her husband had passed away.  
To Jessica's pleasure she arrived to a quiet home, and had a chance to talk to her niece alone for a short time. Jessica knew that soon there would be a houseful of people, because tonight there would be a shower in Amanda's honor.  
Her niece offered Jessica a cup of tea and the two of them took a seat on the living room couch. "I am so excited. Joe and I will be married in three days" Amanda told her.  
"I have not had the pleasure of meeting Joe and I look forward to meeting him tonight at the shower." Jessica told her. "Oh the country club that you are getting married at is beautiful and the view is gorgeous. "  
" We are going to have a buffet meal with a sit down meal for the rehearsal dinner. There will be a photographer there for the dinner, the wedding and the wedding reception. The country club has taken care of most of everything else. Is your room nice?" Amanda asked.  
"The room is wonderful and the smell that comes from the restaurant makes it even nicer. The people there are wonderful too. It was a great choice to have a wedding at. I hope that you and Joe have a long and happy life together."  
"I would like you to come and see our new home. Tomorrow morning would be good for me. Would you like to go over and see the house?" Amanda asked. "Joe will be there too. He will be doing some painting getting ready for the big day." she smiled.  
That evening there was a big party. It was finally warm enough to enjoy the outdoors and the people naturally went outside. Most of the neighbors had been invited and so the party had become almost a block party.  
It was a gala affair and Joe seemed to be a wonderful man. He was the life of the party and seemed to genuinely love Amanda. His parents Mike and Donna were very much for the marriage and were very fond of Jessica's niece also.  
She met the bridesmaids, Diane, Sue, Patty and Linda, and then she met the ushers, , Tom Bob. Doug and Jerry. They were all talking about the wedding and the tuxedos that they would be wearing. Joe's brother Steve was to be the best man and Amanada's sister Melissa was to be the maid of honor. Each one of them knew each other well, and were all local.  
Everything went well and Amanda and Joe received tons of money and gifts from everyone and the party ended around eleven pm. Jessica headed back to the country club and went to bed.  
The next morning she met Joe and Amanda at their new home. They had purchased a home on a small street just two blocks from the school that Amanda would be teaching at and less than a mile from the store where Joe worked. It was a small ranch with three bedrooms and a large backyard. It had needed some updating and Joe and Amanda would have to wait for the house to be updated, but it would be a nice home to live in and raise a family.  
That afternoon Jessica met with Mark and Joanne. To her surprise they seemed to be a little nervous about the wedding now. She tried to find out information from them but they were not food was good though and the next day would be the rehearsal dinner.  
Jessica spent the next day at the local candle store. It was a well known candle place where people from all over the world come to see the site. It is billed as one of the most popular tourist spots in Massachusetts.  
The next spot that she stopped and walked around was at the place of the Old Deerfield Massacre. Almost all of the homes on the street had some sort of tie with the battle that had happened almost three hundred years before. When she arrived back at her room she went straight to her bed.  
The day of the rehearsal dinner was a wonderful spring day. The weather was warm and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The photographer arrived on time and took many pictures of the family and friends. Jessica was thrilled to be asked to appear in many of the photos and as she looked around at the surroundings she knew that the wedding would be perfect.  
The rehearsal dinner went well, with everyone enjoying the food and the time together. Plans were finalized and Amanda and Joe had gone out of their way to make sure that everyone felt at home and welcomed.  
The wedding was gorgeous as Amanda wore her grandmother's wedding gown. It had a long train with silver sequins on each of the three quarter sleeves. Her veil covered her face as was traditional. Joe and Amanda had written their own vows and had recited each one from memory. The ceremony was lovely and Jessica was impressed with the service. The decorations were tasteful and roses were laid on the floor as Amanda walked down the aisle.  
The limo took Amanda and Joe to the country club, and Jessica and her sister and brother in law rode together in their car. It was a short ride to the reception and each and everyone of the people in the party stood for more photographs. Once they arrived at the dinner, everyone seemed to be enjoying the meal.  
Everything seemed to be fine and Amanda and Joe had just gone upstairs to get dressed to leave on their honeymoon when Jessica heard the scream. Everyone apparently had heard the scream as over half of the guests at the reception came running.. On the floor was one of the guests from the wedding. Larry Ryan. He had been stabbed and was lying in a pool of blood. Unfortunately he had passed away.  
Jessica made sure that no one at the reception touched anything and the head waiter called 911. This was a deep shock to everyone and especially to Amanda and Joe. Larry had been a good friend of Joe's since they had been in elementary school. The police asked them not to leave until they had finished the initial investigation.  
This is when Jessica went to work. She knew that Larry was a local man who had come to the wedding with his girlfriend of over two years Mackenzie. They seemed to have been a happy couple and Mackenzie had to go to the hospital to be medicated, she was so distraught.  
Jessica looked over at the table where Larry and Mackenize had been sitting, and took notes on who the other people were that had sat at the table. She also had tons of photos that had been taken both by the professional photographer and by different people who had brought their own cameras.  
At the table had been two of Larrry's old school friends and their wives. They had all been on the same high school football game together, and although they had lost contact somewhat in the last few years, they had seemed to been having a great time seeing each other once again after several years.  
Luckily the country club also had a security system. However, where the murder was committed there were no security cameras. But there was a security camera located at one of the doorways that entered the room where the murder took place.  
Unfortunately, there were over one hundred people going in and out of the room and it was very difficult to identify them all at once. Jessica would need Amanda and Joe's help with the identification of the different individuals.  
After the police had taken statements from everyone at the country club, they allowed the people to leave. Jessica went around and talked to some of the workers. She had become friends with Sharon one of the waitresses at the restaurant and had decided to start with her.  
Sharon was a nice lady that was in her thirties and she had promised that if she heard anything through the grapevine she would let Jessica know immediately. She had seen nothing out of the ordinary, as she had been in the kitchen checking with the chef about a problem that they were having with one of the dishes that they were supposed to have on the buffet. She, like the rest of the patrons had come out of the kitchen when she had heard the screams.  
Everyone had gone home and Amanda and Joe had headed back to their new home instead of headed out to their honeymoon in the white mountains.  
Jessica found that Larry worked for a cpa firm that was located just a few miles down the road in Northampton, Ma. He had been there three years and was considered a dependable worker, and to be very honest. Larry lived in a small apartment on a quiet street alone. Mackenzie lived about three miles away and although she had spent the night a few times, she did not live with him. He was well liked at the apartment building. But it was obvious to Jessica that someone didn't like him.  
Two days later she called her niece Amanda. In one way she had wanted to contact her much earlier, but on the other hand Amanda and Joe needed time alone. But the photographer, now had the photos ready for Jessica to look at and she needed Joe and Amanda's help.  
There were hundreds of photos, and then the security camera that had to be looked at, Jessica picked out ten photos that she had questions about. That day there had been twelve different people that had gone into the room where the murder had taken place. Nine of the people were people who were involved with the wedding two were waiters and one was a man that neither Amanda or Joe recognized.  
Jessica got a call that afternoon from Sharon. She wanted to meet with her that evening perhaps at supper. As Jessica took a seat later that evening and Sharon came right over. "I have heard some gossip among the workers that you might find interesting. Word on the street was that Larry and his friend Dan who had sat at the table had gone to school with another man named Dave who had recently accused Larry of cheating with his wife. The man had gotten into drugs and had looked so different that people could hardly recognize him.  
Sharon had given Jessica one of her most solid leads so far in the investigation and Jessica thanked her for the information. Jessica immediately got on her phone and called Amanda again. Amanda agreed to meet her at her house and Jessica again showed Amanda the picture of the man that they didn't recognize and asked them if the man could possibly been their old friend  
Dave. Joe lifted up the photo and gave it a good look "OMG I think that you are right. That could be him. He was not invited to our wedding because of the way that he has turned out. He has gotten involved with a bad crowd and has been known to deal drugs. He also has a police record now.  
"Did you hear that Larry had been accused of cheating with Dave's wife?" Jessica asked.  
Amanda looked guilty and with a little trepidation she admitted that she had heard the rumor on the street. She wasn't sure where she had heard it, but she hadn't wanted to get involved since Mackenzie and Larry were friends of both her and Joe's.  
It was at this point that Jessica wanted go and speak to Dave. She found him living in a small dirty apartment in a bad part of town. He was living with his wife and two children. Dave had no job and his wife lived on welfare. He was not even supposed to live there, because of the benefits that his wife and kids were getting.  
"I admit it. I went to the wedding. I wanted to talk to Larry. The night before the wedding I had gotten a call from Mackenzie. She told me that Larry and her were breaking up because of the affair. My wife Ginny and I have now made up and she wanted nothing to do with Larry. He was physically abusive to Mackenzie and had also struck my wife, but when I got to the room someone had already killed him." Dave told him.  
Something about the story did make sense to Jessica. Dave was down on his luck, but had no reason to lie about Mackenzie. Jessica looked through the photos again and that is where something caught her eye.  
She needed to speak to her niece and ask the members of the wedding party to meet with her again at the country club. She wanted to go over the happenings of that evening at the country club once again.  
That evening all the members of the wedding party Mackenzie and Dave and his wife Ginny all arrived at the country club. Jessica asked them to go to the location that they were at when they had heard the scream. She also had the photographer come and be a witness to where he had been standing during the time also.  
One of the waiters acted the part of Larry and the man who had found the body stood over it as he had that day. She took out the security camera footage and watched again as each of the guests went and came from the room. She looked first at Mackenzie "I don't see you coming back into the room but I see you entering. Where were you when you heard the screams?" she asked her.  
Mackenzie shuffled her feet and appeared to be thinking long and hard about the question when she stated "All right all right. I admit it. Larry and I were on the verge of breaking up because of his his cheating on me. So Dave and I had met outside on the patio to decide on how we could pay them both back. It had started as a hug but we had become a kiss." she admitted.  
Everyone in the room seemed shocked expecially Dave who was sure that she would never admit doing anything of the kind.  
Jessica then turned her attention to Ginny the wife of Dave. :"I think that you saw Dave and Mackenzie in a compromising position and ran into Larry. Do you want to tell me what happened then?" she asked her.  
"That is not true. I was not in the room at all. You can't prove a thing." Ginny told her.  
"I am afraid I can. I had one of the photos that was taken that afternoon by one of the guests. They had seen the two people making out on the patio and had taken their picture. It was there that your face got caught in the photo. You saw the whole thing." Jessica accused her.  
With that Ginny started to cry and then said " I found Larry coming into the room. He was going to see them also and so I tried to stop him. But he laughed, he said that and he didn't care what Dave and Mackenzie were doing. He pushed me and I lost it I stabbed him once and then again and again. Dave and Mackenzie didn't care about me either. They never saw me. I hid behind the curtains."  
With that Jessica called the police and Ginny admitted everything to them.  
The next day Amanda and Joe went on their belated honeymoon and another case was closed.


End file.
